the gift of eternal friendship

Written By Andy Richards

“Perfect love embraces and transcends all feelings, emotions, and passions. The perfect love that drives out all fear is the divine love in which we are invited to participate. The home, the intimate place, the place of true belonging, is therefore not a place made by human hands. It is fashioned for us by God, who came to pitch his tent among us, invite us to his place, and prepare a room for us in his own house.”

HENRI NOUWEN

Lean on Me

You know what? We really do need each other these days.


All of us still, and will, carry some relational needs into the shared spaces we enter—we were created in relationship and designed to stay in connection.


Are you like me and have parts of you that wonder how to actually fill that hole that always seems to be craving deeper? And how will these parts of us find healing without safe friendship?


Last week, I spent seven glorious days parked alongside fifty-five of my friends from the Renovaré Institute at our second school residency. To say it was living inside a big ole’ fat slice of heaven would be an understatement. 


It was a wonderfully slow, deliciously smooshy, transformative experience. With lots of buckets of hope, laughs, and healing shared.


Why are you here?

What do we do at residency? We have one thing in mind that brings us together: Learn to be with Jesus.


Not how do we become like him… but simply be with him.


You know the old adage, “You are the sum of who you surround yourself with”?


Here’s the upside-down thing: Stepping into deeper friendship with Jesus means you end up becoming like him— as a byproduct of a sweetly intimate, and mutually shared relationship with someone who really, really likes you. 


And he’s the only filler of the God-shaped hole each of our souls aches with.


At my residency, our shared goal of being with Jesus became a life laboratory for learning how we can be with each other—in a more authentic, renewing, others-centered, life-giving way. 


I was surrounded by soul friends desperately searching for Truth. We broke bread. We honored beautiful liturgies of worship & ones of the very ordinary. We immersed ourselves in the great Love Story. We carried each other’s burdens in some way—lessening our loads and filling our love tanks.


I came home lighter. Things got rearranged a bit inside. I’m bearing fresh hope.


I’m learning this is what it’s like to commune with eternal friends.

 

The Gift of God’s Friendship

For me, friendship with Jesus often feels like a really warm hug wearing a big ole’ smile, just about anytime I’m in need of one. It’s having the bestest life companion to do things with— the One who gets me just the way I want to get gotten, with a perfect track record to boot! (Also, he’s super smart and really, really helpful, too).


And the deeper I go in friendship with Jesus, the wider the circle of his friends becomes. When I put myself on the path of being with him, he gives me eyes, a Lens of Love, to show me others traveling in the same hopeful direction.


It’s always a thing leaving that kind of atmosphere, where we’re living in the thin space—where heaven and earth feel exceptionally close—and reentering the reality of life. It’s always a bit bumpy and a wee bit crumply.

These words from my friend, Joy, bring me great comfort, “We have an eternity to get to know each other.”


When I returned home after my first residency, the prayer that emerged shortly after this life-deepning experience was, “Jesus, show me your friends.”


And then I found many of you!


So if any part of you wonders, “Is there more?”—I invite you to join me in person next week at my weekly Come on Home park gathering. We’ll be practicing being together with Jesus and learning to invite all parts of us to take their place at His table through Internal Family Systems.


(there will be no said table, per se, but a really sweet circle of hope with like-hearted souls parking themselves on the grass together!)


Come on Home

a FREE monthly park gathering of like-hearted souls

Experience the compassionate approach of Internal Famiy Systems & discover how to invite Jesus into your internal tug-of-war to welcome greater peace, confidence and clarity

Wednesday, March 18th, 10-11:30am

Dover Hendrix Park in Thousand Oaks

Register for FREE here


If you’re local, I really do hope you will join me! And for those of you kindred spirits that are afar, I’m holding you right next to my heart. Come knock on my “door” sometime.


With you and for you,

Andy

 
Andy Richards https://imponderabilia.life
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a trust invitation